Estrogen is an amazing hormone it does so many things within our bodies to keep us healthy and curvy. I like to think of estrogen as the friend that you can go to and feel better, they can give you a hug and all is well. It’s great for bone health, cognitive health and keeps cholesterol in check. It’s our sex hormone that makes all the changes at puberty, hello boobs and curves!

We have three different types of estrogen in our bodies, estrone, estriol and estrodiol. Estradiol is the main one we produce every cycle. After it’s done its thing and risen in the first half of our cycle when we need it most for ovulation. We then have to metabolise estrogen and get it out of our bod’s. This is where it gets a little complicated as there are three phases.

Phase one is where estrogen starts it’s detox through the body with help from the liver, it can actually go down three different pathways. It can go down pathway one (OHE2). This is the healthiest pathway for it to go down as it goes straight to phase two, the next stage of methylation and with help from the COMP gene it goes on phase three. This is where it gets excreted out of the body down the loo.

The second pathway (OHE4) is the more carcinogenic pathway so we don’t really want to go down this one. The third pathway (OH16) makes things grow and is very estrogenic so it can be good for bones but not great for breasts. To do phase one well your body needs iron, so if you are low in iron this could be an issue. To help the body go down the healthiest OHE2 pathway you should eat kale, broccoli and cauliflower. You can also supplement with DIM if needed.

There can be problems with phase two if your COMT gene is slow this means your estrogen will struggle to get through this stage, things that help your COMP are B vitamins especially B12, Magnesium and zinc. Things that can make COMP slow are being low on the vitamins and minerals I just mentioned, COMP mutation, heavy metals, chemicals, and being estrogen dominant. After estrogen has been through phase two it is now water soluble and ready to join your bile and be excreted out of the body. To do this you need a microbiome that lives in your intestines called estrobolome, when the estrogen and the microbiome make friends and have a little party in your intestines they are then ready to be pooped or peed out. Problems can happen here if our microbiome is not up to scratch and you have an unhealthy diet with not enough fibre. Things that can help a healthy microbiome are eating lots of fibre to make sure you poo every day, just try adding a raw carrot a day for some great fibre. If you don’t have the right microbiome at this stage your estrogen just gets reabsorbed into the body. What a bummer after going through all that and it has to start the whole process again.

After taking a trip with estrogen’s journey through the body you can see how easy it can be to become estrogen dominant, which can cause problems such as PMS, heavy periods, period pain and menstrual problems, and how breast cancers are so prevalent in our society.

If you are concerned which pathway your body is taking one of the best ways to find out is with blood or urine testing as it shows you which pathway your body favours. these tests are available from Points please just shout out for more details.

This is just a simplified journey into estrogen metabolism if you would like a more in-depth explanation I recommend checking out Dr Carrie Jones as she has lots more info on this topic.